


Sinful

by RegalStarlight



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Seven Deadly Sins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-14 13:42:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5745988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RegalStarlight/pseuds/RegalStarlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma is the Dark One, and as Regina fights to save her, both women must confront their own dark sides as well as their feelings for each other. Very AU Dark Swan story. Seven Deadly Sins. Written for Swan Queen Week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lust

Lust was a weapon Regina was more than familiar with. As the Evil Queen, she had worn plunging necklines and learned to flirt in just the right way to tempt and frighten at the same time. It was as delicate a game as any other kind of manipulation. The little girl who had dreamed of True Love was gone, and in her place was a woman who knew that love was weakness and attraction was a delicate balance of power, a dangerous battle fought with words and movements, not with swords or magic.

This corrupted version of Emma had clearly learned the art of seduction, too. When she stalked up to Regina’s door, dressed in dangerously high heels and black leather, the former Evil Queen’s breath caught in her throat. For a moment, all she could do was stare. It was like a twisted version of the very first time they had met, and she felt just as astonished and confused as she had when she had first laid eyes on Emma Swan in her red leather jacket.

Emma didn’t bother with an awkward “hi” this time. She stepped forward, with a coy smile on her face, and stroked Regina’s cheek lightly with one finger. A shiver ran down the Mayor’s spine. She couldn’t tell whether she was more terrified or turned on. Was this what it was like to be on the receiving end of her own flirtations, she wondered? But surely Emma Swan couldn’t possibly be flirting with her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

The Dark Swan smiled. “Maybe I just came by for dinner.”

Oh, no. Absolutely not. This was far too much like a certain nightmare Regina knew she would never forget, and now she could hear her heart pounding.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ms. Swan. We both know you’re not here for dinner.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then what did you come for?”

“You.”

Emma looked her in the eye and said it so quietly that Regina almost thought she had imagined the word. But then the woman dressed in black took another step forward and her lips crashed against Regina’s. For a moment, she was too shocked to react. The taste of Emma’s mouth overwhelmed her. The other woman’s tongue pushed past her lips, and Regina didn’t bother to resist.

How long had she wanted this?

She could pretend otherwise, but she knew the truth: she had wanted this from the very first time she had seen Ms. Swan standing awkwardly on her front porch with her blonde curls and red leather jacket. Oh, she might not have admitted it at the time, and the lust that she felt had been mixed with anger and hate back then, but it had been there all the same. And over the years it had never gone away. Softened, morphed into something much more tender and caring than the initial hate-filled passion, and been pushed to the back of her mind as something that would never happen, but it certainly hadn’t faded.

And now here she was, looking into Emma’s eyes as she gasped for breath and pressed Regina against the wall, feeling Emma’s breath on her neck as her fingers fumbled with the top button on Regina’s blouse. And she wanted this, she wanted it more than she could admit. But Emma’s eyes were as cold as ice, and that wasn’t how she had imagined it. Her hand closed around the other woman’s wrist as she went for the next button.

“No,” she hissed.

Emma’s eyes widened. She stepped back.

“No? Why not?”

“Because you’re not yourself right now, and you stole our memories. I don’t know what happened in Camelot, but that’s the point: I don’t know. How can I trust you right now?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t want to. I know, Regina.”

Regina chuckled under her breath. “Maybe I do. But not like this.”

She hastily buttoned her shirt back up as Emma considered that, leaning back against the wall.

“How, then?”

Regina considered that. There was the fact that they were both seeing other people, although where exactly Hook was now no one seemed to know. But even if that wasn’t an issue, there was something very cold about Emma’s gaze that didn’t match up with the tenderness of Regina’s feelings.

“If we’re going to do this, I want a real relationship. I want it to mean something.”

“It does.” Emma was making the sad puppy face now, and she came closer, taking Regina gently by the hand.

“Does it? Because you’re the Dark One now, and I am not an idiot. Or are you forgetting who I was?”

Emma was definitely doing the sad puppy face. “So you’re rejecting me? Just like everyone else always has?”

Regina knew it was another manipulation – she had spent too much time with Rumple not to know that – but the heartbroken look on Emma’s face was almost enough to hide her cold, calculating eyes. With a sigh, she pulled Emma closer and held her tight in an embrace.

“I’ll never reject you,” she whispered. “Whatever you need, I’m here for you, I promise. And if this is really what you want, we can try to figure it out. Later. But not in a moment of lust and bad judgment, and definitely not if I think you’re manipulating me. Okay?”

Emma didn’t reply. To her surprise, Regina found that she hadn’t been expecting a response.


	2. Gluttony

After she showed up on Regina's doorstep that day, Emma started spending more time at the mansion than anyone would ever have expected, including Regina. She thought about pointing out that Emma had a house of her own now, but every time she did, the words died on her tongue. At least if Emma was here, Regina could do her best to keep an eye on her. She had promised to help Emma, and she knew that pushing her away would only make things worse.

As Regina started to get used to this dark version of Emma, she soon started to see the old Emma's quirks manifest themselves in bizarre new ways. Emma had always eaten like a child, favoring grilled cheese and donuts over anything particularly healthy. But now, there seemed to be no end to the amount of junk food she could eat. Regina found cookie crumbs on her table and saw whole pizzas devoured in a single night. One day, when she came home from the office to find Emma sprawled out on her couch, still dressed in her ridiculous black leather costume – seriously, someone needed to give her some villainous fashion advice – and munching on potato chips, she grumbled and marched straight over to snatch the bag out of Emma's hand.

"Hey!"

"That's quite enough," said Regina. "If you're going to gorge on food like this –" she raised a disapproving eyebrow at the bag "– then at least you can eat it in the kitchen, where you won't get crumbs all over my living room furniture."

Emma grumbled under her breath, but she took the bag of chips back from Regina and made her way into the kitchen, where she sat down at the table and started munching again.

"Are you sure I can't get you something more nutritious?" Regina asked. "Perhaps an apple?"

Emma chuckled. "No offense, Regina, but I don't exactly trust your apples."

Regina smiled at that. How bizarre that they could joke about something that just a few years ago had been a weapon in the war between them. But maybe Dark Swan meant it in a harsher way than the old Emma would have, and that thought made Regina's smile falter.

"Why do you love such unhealthy food so much?" Regina asked, trying to push past the awkward silence. She wasn't expecting Emma's eyes to narrow or her body to stiffen the way that it did. Then the blonde woman stood up and walked across the kitchen, high-heeled boots clip-clopping against the tile.

"That's none of your business," she hissed. "Understand?"

Regina blinked at her in shock and hastily forced a nod.

"Good." The word might as well have been laced with poison, and then Emma Swan disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Later, Regina found her in the living room, staring into the fireplace with tears streaming down her face. She approached quietly and sat down beside her, gently touching her arm. She opened her mouth, meaning to ask if Emma was okay, but that was a silly question, she decided. Emma was clearly far from okay.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Emma looked at her and said nothing.

"It's okay. You can tell me."

"You asked why I like junk food," Emma said. "When I was a kid in the foster system, they sent me to a lot of group homes. There were always bigger kids, bullies who liked to steal food from the younger ones, and my foster parents never cared enough to stop them. I learned to eat fast. And when I was really little, the family I was with would punish me when I was bad by taking away some of my meals. I always got lunch at school, of course, and I used to steal food when I could, chips and things out of other kids' lunchboxes. I stole a candy bar out of some lady's pocket at a movie theater once … So I guess growing up that way, I just …"

"You don't see food as something you know you'll have," said Regina. "I understand."

Emma raised an eyebrow. Maybe the old Emma would have let it slide, but this new one didn't try to hide her skepticism.

"You were a queen."

"And I was raised to be one. You have to be beautiful to attract a king's attention. Do you think my mother would have let me gain weight? Have you ever tried to fit inside a corset?"

Emma looked at her as if she had never considered that, and it struck Regina that they were just two different sides of the same coin, in this as much as anything else.

"When I was nine, I had a foster father who used to call me a glutton because of how fast I would eat anything I could get my hands on," said Emma. "I know it isn't healthy, but …"

"It's a battle scar," said Regina. "It's not your fault you have so many of those."

Where did it come from, that intense desire to wrap Emma up in a blanket and protect her from the world?


	3. Greed

Regina had more or less gotten used to the Dark Swan's presence in her home. Things were hardly as peaceful between them as they had been in the months before Emma became the Dark One. But then again, this was still better than the days when they had screamed at each other over who was Henry's real mother.

_"He's my son!"_

_"No he's not, he's mine!"'_

It was greed on both their parts, greed and envy. Regina realized that now. Not the kind of greed that had led her mother to seek out wealth and power at the expense of everything else, nothing to do with material possessions at all, but the kind of greed that sees love as a limited resource. Maybe neither one of them could be blamed for feeling that way, deprived of it as they both had been. That was another battle scar they shared. But in the end, it had only hurt Henry.

Things were still better than they had been back then. Emma had lied and concealed, ripped out hearts and caused pain, sent Regina to what could have been her death against the Fury, and even her ordinary bad habits had become worse. But she hadn't tried to take their son from Regina, and for that, Regina was grateful.

How strange to think that the thing that had made them enemies for so long was now one of the few things they weren't at odds about.

No, Regina was the greedy one now, the one who kept and hoarded things she had no right to, as Emma was more than happy to point out when they got into a shouting match one night.

"Why can't you at least try to fight it?" Regina demanded.

"Why can't you accept that this is who I am now?"

"Because I know you, Emma," said Regina. "I knew you, and I know you wouldn't have wanted to be like this. You wanted to fight the curse."

"And I failed!" Emma's tone bordered on hysterical. Regina wouldn't have been surprised to see her cry, but no tears came.

"There's nothing you can't come back from," said Regina.

"Oh, you'd know all about that."

"Yes, I do. Your point?"

"You want me to give up my curse, my power, but look at you: still living in the mansion you got from your curse, still acting as Mayor –"

"The people wanted me back!" Regina protested.

"Still keeping that collection of hearts in your vault. You haven't given up your creepy souvenirs, have you?"

Regina gave a little huff and stalked out of the room, but she tossed and turned that night, thinking of her vault and the hearts it contained. Was it wrong of her to keep them? Probably so. She hadn't had any desire to give up her power over anyone right after the curse broke, and later they had been running from one realm to another and fighting villains, and those things had taken precedence. But even if she wanted to give them back, she had long since lost track of whose heart was whose.

All those excuses vanished when the pounding of her own heart grew into a hundred heartbeats and filled her dreams that night.

The next morning, she made her way down to the vault and sat down among the beating hearts, trying to remember who each of them belonged to. Was that the heart of the peasant woman who couldn't afford her taxes? Or the Black Knight who failed spectacularly to kill Snow White? Was it one of her hearts or the ones her mother had taken? Was whoever it belonged to alive or dead? In Storybrooke or some other realm? No matter how hard she tried to remember, she had no idea. She had taken so many. She had been a monster.

And Emma was right. She had no right to these hearts.

Hesitating only for a moment, she opened the drawer and pulled the small red heart it contained out of its prison. She held it up before her and spoke into it:

"Come to my vault if you are able."

Ten minutes later, a middle-aged woman appeared at the top of the stairs. Regina could see from her wide eyes and shaking hands that she was scared, at least as much as anyone could be without a heart. The former Evil Queen gave a nervous smile and tried not to seem too threatening.

"I'm sorry," she said. Apologies were useless, but it was something to say, at least. "I know it doesn't change what I did, but this is yours, and you can have it back now. I should never have taken it in the first place."


	4. Sloth

Regina sat in her office, with an enormous stack of heart boxes piled up behind her. The door shut behind yet another former victim now reunited with his heart. This was exhausting, not to mention humiliating and occasionally painful. A bruise was already starting to blossom on her cheek. Apparently not everyone was quite willing to forgive her. But she knew that now that she had started, she wouldn't give up until she had given back every heart that she could. Regina had never done anything halfway.

Emma showed up a few hearts later and perched on the edge of the desk, ignoring any number of chairs she could have sat on.

"You're seriously doing this?" she asked.

Regina shrugged. "You were right. I should have given them back a long time ago."

"It must be so much work, though."

"Well, I'm afraid sloth is not one of my many sins. But now that you're here, we should talk about something more important."

"And what's that?" Emma asked, looking down at Regina curiously.

"King Arthur. What do we do about him?"

Emma just shrugged. Leaning forward, she brushed a finger against the bruise on Regina's face.

"Who did this?"

"Who do you think?"

"Give me a name. I'll make them suffer."

Regina shook her head. "King Arthur, Emma. We need to take care of him before he does … whatever he's planning to do, and that would be a lot easier if we had our memories from Camelot."

She looked up at Emma with a poignant glare, but the blonde woman didn't react.

"Don't worry about him."

"Ms. Swan, he is a problem. And one I intend to solve. Now I don't know why you took our memories of Camelot, but to be honest, it doesn't really matter. I can do this with or without your help."

"You're really determined to do this being the Savior thing, aren't you?"

Regina didn't bother replying to that.

"It's not as easy as you think." There was something bitter in Emma's tone. "You'll see soon enough. At some point, you just have to … give up. Stop fighting."

That didn't sound like the Emma Swan that Regina remembered. But it did sound like the Emma who had tried to run from her role as Savior when they had first met, and the Emma who had wanted to go back to New York after they defeated Zelena. At her worst, Emma ran from her responsibilities. It wasn’t surprising that the Dark Swan would, too.

Ignoring Emma, she reached for another heart and gave its owner orders to come to her office.

"So what now?" Emma asked. "We just wait until whoever that belongs to gets here?"

Regina nodded. "If they do." She glanced at the two hearts sitting off to the side whose owners had never shown up. Maybe they were dead, or bedridden, or back in the Enchanted Forest. She would see later if there was any spell she could use to track them down.

"How long do you think it will take? To give them all back, I mean."

"A long time. I took hundreds."

Regina recognized the woman who found her way to her office. She had been the wife of one of the guards, who claimed he was willing to serve her but had been a little too fond of Snow for the queen to trust him. She had taken this woman's heart in order to make sure her husband didn't turn traitor.

"I take it you're giving that back now," the woman said coldly, eyeing the heart.

"Yes."

"Keep it."

Regina stared at her silently. No one so far had refused to take their heart back. Not even the man who had punched her – especially not him.

"Why?"

"You don't remember, do you?"

"Remember what?"

"My husband died in the final battle against Snow White's forces. It was painful enough without that in my chest. Do you think I want it back?"

Oh. That was something Regina hadn't been counting on.

"I can understand that," she said. "But I also know that you're making the wrong choice. Take the heart. Think about it. If you decide you want me to put it back, then come find me and I'll do it."

She dropped the heart back into its box and pushed it across the table. When the woman had taken it and left, Regina saw Emma looking at her with a contemplative expression on her face.

"What?" she demanded.

"You're so sure she's making the wrong choice?"

"Emma, I know what it's like to lose someone you love."

"Sometimes it would be easier, though, don't you think? To not feel any pain?"

Regina wondered if Snow had told her that she had taken out her own heart after their return to the Enchanted Forest.

"I don't care what's easier," she snapped. "And you wouldn't either if you were acting like yourself. First you don't give a damn what King Arthur is doing, then you think going without a heart is a good choice because it's easier? That's not the Emma Swan I know. She was a fighter."

"Well," said Emma, folding her arms across her chest. "Maybe I'm tired of fighting. Maybe I just want life to be easy for once. Is that so wrong?"

Regina shrugged. "That's your choice, Emma. But you know I want you to keep fighting."


	5. Wrath

"You gave me up!" Emma screamed at her parents, throwing them backwards into the street with a blast of angry light. "You didn't even try to find a way to keep me! I had to grow up all alone, thinking that nobody ever wanted me, so that I could come back and give you your happy endings! Well I'm done!"

"Emma, please calm down," Regina said, stepping between Emma and the Charmings as David helped Snow to her feet.

"And you," Emma turned on her. "You're the reason they had to. I could have grown up happy. Loved. But your curse took all of that away."

Arguments were nothing unusual for Emma and Regina, especially since whatever had happened in Camelot. But this was different. This was worse than any of the fights they had gotten into since Emma had become the Dark One, and even worse than anything that had happened when they first met. Emma had just snapped that day when her parents had shown up, and now Regina was beginning to see why she had been avoiding them.

With a blast of magic, Emma sent a brick wall crumbling, leaving Regina to duck out of the way of the falling rubble. Her eyes were as cold as ice. But then she turned to scream at the air, and it almost seemed like she was struggling with herself as much as she was fighting Regina.

The queen shot fireballs out of the palms of her hands, but Emma took hold of the flames and sent them flying right back at her.

"Why are you doing this?" Regina gasped.

"Because I can," she snarled. "You failed me in Camelot. You and everyone else."

"So tell me what I did wrong!" Regina snapped, sending another blast of magic at Emma.

"You tried to help me, and it only made things worse. That's all you need to know."

Emma threw her backwards, and she slammed into a wall. Standing on shaky legs, she tried to get her bearings before Emma came at her again. She threw another fireball, but her aim was off and it sailed right past Emma.

"I can help you," she said desperately. "Whatever I did, I can make up for it."

"No, you can't," said Emma fiercely. "What you did, what I did – there's no coming back from it once you all remember."

"Emma, I've murdered more people than I can count," said Regina. "I've spent the last few weeks giving back hearts that I ripped out. I cast a curse that destroyed the Enchanted Forest and put everyone through twenty eight years of torment. Nothing that happened in Camelot could be worse than that. So I don't care if you hate me or want me dead, I'm still going to do everything I can for you. I'm fighting to save you, don't you see that?"

"Why?" Emma demanded, letting the angry beams of light fade as she stared back at Regina in confusion.

"Because I love you."

The words came out before Regina even realized what she was saying, but when she heard them, she knew they were true. She was in love with Emma Swan, and she had been for a long time. Emma was crying now, and she turned to snarl, "Shut up!" – not at Regina but at some invisible figure standing beside her. She stepped closer to Regina and collapsed into her arms. Their mouths found each other and then they were kissing frantically, passionately, as if kisses were air and they were both drowning.

"Come with me," Emma whispered when they finally broke apart. "I need to show you what happened in Camelot."


	6. Envy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: This is the point where the story becomes truly AU. The answer to what happened in Camelot and turned Emma dark is completely different in this fic. Also, warning for major character death in this chapter (not Emma or Regina).

"Are you sure about this?" Regina asked as she followed Emma into a small shed filled with dreamcatchers.

"You wanted to know," said Emma. "Don't tell me you're backing out now."

Regina shook her head. "Of course not."

"Good." Emma pulled down a dreamcatcher from where it hung on the wall and held it out to Regina. "Each one has the memories of someone from our group. This one is yours. Just look into it and you'll see everything that happened in Camelot."

_The memories flashed by: claiming to be the Savior, searching through old books of magic for a way to release Merlin, fiercely protecting Emma's dagger from anyone – including her own parents – who might use it for the wrong purposes. Finally, they stood by a well outside Granny's Diner, with Emma struggling to admit what held her back and Regina pushing her, first gently, then not-so-gently, grabbing the dagger and ordering her to admit why she was still clinging to the darkness._

_But Hook stormed in and grabbed the dagger from her hand, and Emma snatched it from him and turned away. Snow looked at Regina with a disappointed expression._

_"_ _You really think you're helping her?"_

_"_ _I'm getting to the truth!" she snapped. To Emma's retreating back, she called: "What are you so afraid of?"_

_Emma stopped in her tracks. When she turned back to face them, she was simmering with something that wasn't quite anger. She set the spark down roughly and pulled a piece of paper out of her cloak. "This," she said, waving it in the air. When she slapped it down on the edge of the well, Regina saw that it was a page from the_ Mirror _with a house for sale circled and a note scrawled in Hook's handwriting. "This is what I'm afraid of."_

_"_ _A house?" David asked in a confused tone._

_"_ _No. The future. Killian, when I told you I loved you back in Storybrooke, it was because I thought I would never see you again, but the truth is, I'm not ready for this. The future scares me because …"_

_She fell silent. Regina opened her mouth to speak again, but a glare from Snow silenced her._

_"_ _Because of what, love?" Hook asked._

_"_ _Because it's not the one I really want. This house, this whole future that it stands for, I feel like I'm supposed to want it, but I don't. I never did. What if my happy ending isn't what anyone expects it to be?"_

_Taking another step forward, she wrapped her arms around Regina and kissed her fiercely on the mouth. It only lasted a moment, and then she pulled back with tears in her eyes. Regina glanced at the spark, but it was still just a spark._

_"_ _Now the truth," she said._

_"_ _That was the truth," said Emma._

_"_ _The whole truth," Regina clarified. "Because if that was all, the spark would be lit."_

_"The truth is, I'm jealous." Emma blurted out the words as if she couldn't hold them back anymore. "My whole life, I've been miserable and unwanted. Things got better when I came to Storybrooke, but I should have known it wouldn't last. I learned a long time ago that happy endings are for other people, not for me. And even now that I know I'm a freaking fairy tale princess, that's more true than ever. Because the only man I ever loved is dead, and I tried to do what everyone was telling me I should, but it was all wrong and fake. And I know that I can never be with you because you're in love with someone else. I'm jealous every time I see you and Robin together, jealous of my parents and all the other people who have their happy endings, jealous of my little brother for getting the childhood I should have had, and I don't see any hope for a future I actually want. How can I let go of the darkness when all of that is holding me back?"_

_"_ _You never loved me." Hook's tone was accusatory._

_"_ _I tried," Emma said. "I swear I tried."_

_"_ _Well, not bloody hard enough!" he shouted, taking an angry step toward her. "You lied to me and all the while you were pining for her, the woman who ruined your life! What did she ever do to deserve you?"_

_"_ _Killian, she's not that person anymore, and I can't control who I love."_

_"_ _Well, I deserved better than a relationship built on lies."_

_"_ _You did. You do." Her tone was apologetic, but Regina could see the anger simmering below the surface._

_"_ _So why?"_

_"_ _You chased me!" she blurted out. "You wore me down, and it was easy. That's why."_

_"_ _I changed my life for you!" he snarled. "I became a better man to win your love. You were meant to be my happy ending!"_

_With a sudden motion, Emma had him floating in the air, gasping for breath as she choked him. "I am not your possession!" she shouted, emphasizing each word. "What we had wasn't real! It was never real!"_

_Before anyone could react, she had plunged her hand into his chest and ripped his heart out. It pulsed in her hand for a moment. Regina reached for the dagger to stop her, but it was too late. He collapsed to the ground as the ashes of his heart fell from Emma's hand, seeping through the gaps between her fingers. The gold scales that had covered her hand crawled up her arm and spread across her body. She held her hands up in front of her face and stared at them in horror._

_"_ _The voices …" she murmured, falling to her knees. "They said … but I … no …"_

_Tears trickled down her face as she spoke. Her hair grew white and stringy. Her face was covered with the same rough, discolored skin Regina had seen so many times on Rumple, and her nails grew until they almost looked like claws. She let out a horrified sob._

_"_ _I'm the Dark One now," she said in a flat, horrified tone. "I'm the Dark Swan."_


	7. Pride

Still reeling with shock, Regina looked up from the dreamcatcher and stared at Emma.

"I had no idea …"

"Now you see, don't you?" said Emma.

She did. It made perfect sense now: Emma's attempt to seduce her, the comments she had made that love might not be worth the pain, the way that her wrath had vanished the moment Regina admitted her true feelings, all of it. But one question remained:

"What about the Dark Curse?"

Emma smiled. "There is no Dark Curse."

"What?"

"Storybrooke already existed. I used the wand that brought us to Camelot to send us back, and the dreamcatchers to erase everyone's memories. King Arthur would have tried to kill me with Excalibur, but now he doesn't even remember."

"You took our memories, too," Regina pointed out.

Emma nodded reluctantly. "I was too proud to let you remember what I had said … what I had done …"

Regina softened and approached her, reaching out to touch her cheek. "I wish you had told me sooner."

"You really want to do this, then?"

"Be together? Yes," said Regina. "I've been in love with you for a long time."

"What about Robin?"

"I'll just have to tell him the truth," she said. "I loved him, too, and I know it will be hard on him. But I choose you, Emma. I would always have chosen you, if you had just let me know how you felt."

"That's … I don't even know what to say," said Emma. "But you're forgetting one really big problem. I'm still the Dark One."

"But you don't have to be," said Regina.

“I’m a murderer,” said Emma.

“So am I. What you did was wrong, but if I can be redeemed after everything I’ve done, then so can you.” She spoke fiercely, leaving no room for argument.

"Maybe you're right," said Emma. "If I can light the Promethean Flame and re-forge Excalibur, we can still get the darkness out of me."

Regina smiled. "Emma, I don't think we even need Excalibur."

"What are you talking about?"

"A long time ago, when Rumple was still the Dark One, I tried to trick Belle into breaking his curse. It almost worked, too. But he rejected it, and for as long as they were together, he kept on rejecting it every time they kissed. That's the thing about being the Dark One: in order to break the curse, you have to be willing to give it up. Are you?"

Emma nodded. "I think I finally am."

Regina leaned forward and kissed her, softly and gently, surrounded by the dreamcatchers. They broke apart a moment later, surrounded by a pulse of rainbow light. Something was changing in Emma's face. There was no crocodile skin, not in Storybrooke, but the coldness in her eyes melted away and her white bun spilled out into blonde curls. She stood there for a moment, in shock, as the memories poured out of the dreamcatchers around them and floated away to find the people they belonged to.

"We did it," Emma whispered.

"Yes," said Regina. "We did."

A tear trickled down Emma's cheek.

"What am I now?" she asked.

She had been so many things. A lost girl, a criminal, a bail bondsperson, a princess, the Savior, the Dark One. Regina knew what that was like, having so many fragmented identities. But only one of those things really mattered.

"You're Emma Swan."

Emma smiled. "Yeah, I guess I am. Now come on. We've got an evil king to get rid of."

They found him easily. He wasn't exactly trying to hide. Like the coward that he was, he sent out his knights to fight them while he himself stayed safely back, but knights couldn't do much against two powerful magic-users. There was no need to kill them. A simple sleeping spell would suffice. Guinevere stood at King Arthur's side, an empty shell of a queen, and Regina felt a pang of recognition. This wasn't all that different from her own marriage to King Leopold. In the back stood Merlin, chained and bound, but struggling with all his might. Acting on instinct, Regina aimed her magic at him, not at King Arthur, and cast a simple spell to free him. The chains fell harmlessly to the ground.

"Stay back!" King Arthur ordered him. "You're still bound by Excalibur."

"Which you don't have," said Emma, smiling. "We do."

She summoned the broken sword in a puff of smoke and held it out to Merlin. "Here. Take it. I don't know how to unbind you from it, but you deserve to control your own destiny."

As his fist closed around the hilt, King Arthur must have known it was over. Regina could see the fear in his eyes, and a knot formed in her stomach. She didn't think she would ever help to defeat a villain without remembering what it felt like to be in their place.

"Give up now," she said. "It's not too late. You can go back to Camelot, tell your people the truth, and do right by them."

"I'll never surrender."

Of course. He was far too proud, and that would be his downfall. Meanwhile, with a wave of his hand, Merlin had lifted Guinevere's enchantment. She looked around in horror as if she was seeing clearly for the first time.

"No!" she cried.

Regina wasn't sure where the Queen of Camelot had gotten a knife, but before any of them had a chance to react, it was buried in King Arthur's chest and Guinevere was standing there with tears on her face and blood trickling down her arm.

Later, after Guinevere, Merlin, and the knights had set off on their own quest to make Camelot into the kingdom it was always meant to be, Emma and Regina made their way to Granny's to meet the rest of their family. One glance at the two of them, hand-in-hand and glowing with love, was enough to tell Snow and Charming what had happened, and a clumsy explanation filled in the gaps as they sobbed with joy over having their daughter back.

"I've always just wanted you to be happy," said Snow. "Both of you," she added, turning to Regina and hugging her as well. If David looked like he wanted to pull her aside and tell her exactly what he would do if she broke his daughter's heart, it didn't really matter. And best of all, Henry was there, grinning with joy. He pulled them both into a three-way hug, and Regina remembered the first time they had done that, after they had saved him from Peter Pan. She should have known even then that Emma and Henry were her happy ending, because she had never felt happier than when she held them in her arms.

"I'm so proud of you," he said. "Both of you."

They say that pride is the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins. And it had certainly caused them enough problems, Regina thought to herself. If only Emma had told the truth instead of instead of taking their memories to save her own pride. If only King Arthur hadn't concealed the broken sword and pretended to be something he wasn't. But then again, Regina herself had always been too proud for her own good, rejecting kindness and mercy time and time again because she was too afraid of looking weak. That sort of pride was destructive.

But there was another kind of pride, too: the pride that they took in keeping Storybrooke safe. The pride that kept them going even after everything they had been through and fighting for what they knew was right. The kind of pride that Henry meant when he said he was proud of them, and the pride that Regina felt towards Emma and Henry and the family they had built together. That sort of pride was a virtue, because it came from courage and love.

And as they sat down to dinner together, Regina didn't think she had ever felt more proud of anything in her life.


End file.
